AN attendance of 1,315 at St Colman’s Park saw Cobh Ramblers keep their winning start to the League Of Ireland First Division season going against Wexford FC last Friday night.

A second goal of the season for Tiernan O’Brien and a controversial winner from Dale Holland saw Ramblers make it two wins out of two.

One feels the home games will be crucial for Ramblers in what looks like a very competitive First Division. So this win over a decent Wexford side is a pretty good place to start and Cobh will hope to turn St Colman’s Park into a fortress this term.

Ramblers manager Shane Keegan said to The Echo: “It is going to be really important. Our home form wasn’t good enough here last year. We didn’t make this a hard place to come. I felt it was a hard place for Wexford to come.

“To be able to beat a team of that standard and be the better team I felt over the 90 minutes. We didn’t rob them tonight, we were good value for the win.

But believe me, there is absolutely nobody going to be getting carried away with themselves, not within our dressing room anyway.

“I thought we were very good and I thought we were full value for the three points. I think we made it harder work than we needed to. Luke (Desmond) had a couple of brilliant chances there, Wilson (Waweru) and Jack (Doherty) both had half-decent chances.

“I thought we created an awful lot and I don’t think we coughed up a huge amount either to be honest. But yet because we didn’t take our chances, you are then left with a situation where you are going into injury time and Lee Steacy pulls off an outstanding save.

“They will possibly argue that they should have got an equaliser at the end. I’ll argue that they shouldn’t have been in a position to get an equaliser at the end." 

Although there was certainly a strong debate over if the Cobh winner by Dale Holland had fully crossed the goal line, what cannot be disputed is the fact Ramblers look at this early stage of the season to be a better all-around collective unit compared to last term.

Next up for Cobh is an away trip to face Longford Town, who are now managed by former Ramblers boss Stephen Henderson.

Longford will come into the game with Cobh off the back of a 1-1 draw away to Waterford at the RSC. 

TOUGH

“It’s a brilliant result for them. It is exactly the response Hendo would have wanted, a brilliant response to get a draw against a team that many people expect to be champions.

“It just shows how tough that one is going to be for us next week. But look, we are in a good place and that is all you can do. We are working really well in training at the moment and we will continue to try and do that.

“We’ll get more sessions into us this week and hopefully continue to build a bit of positive momentum into Saturday night.” 

Early days yet but Cobh Ramblers are motoring along quite nicely so far in the 2023 season.